I almost laugh. Leverage. That’s all this is to him.
“You shouldn’t need a picture for people to know you’re in charge,” I say. “You’ve spent my whole life making sure they do.”
His eyes narrow. “You will get in the car. And we will discuss your future.”
He steps just enough into my space that my bag brushes his coat.
I see it, frame by frame. Contact. His surprise. The satisfying give of his balance breaking.
And I see something else layered over it—Talia flinching on a sidewalk. Talia’s voice, brittle and hoarse.
If I lay my father out in this hallway, it won’t just cost me the team. It will prove every worst thing she’s afraid of about me.
My muscles lock. I don’t move.
I take one small step to the side instead.
“I’m not getting in the car,” I say. “We don’t have anything to talk about that we haven’t already said.”
His gaze goes cold. “This defiance is becoming a pattern. And patterns have consequences.”
There it is. The real threat. Not to me. To everything around me.
My jaw clenches hard enough to make my teeth ache. “I know,” I say. “I’m the one who has to live with them.”
I walk around him.
He doesn’t follow. He doesn’t call my name. He just lets me go.
That scares me more than if he’d yelled.
The bus is half-full when I climb on. The windows are fogged near the edges. I drop into an empty seat near the back, bag at my feet, head thunking gently against the window.
Adrian is across the aisle, headphones around his neck. He catches my eye, gives a short, solid nod.You’re here.Then he leans back and closes his eyes.
My phone buzzes as the driver starts the engine.
Father:There will be consequences.
I stare at the screen. My heart doesn’t spike. It sinks. Heavy. Familiar.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe there will be consequences.
The question is: who pays for them?
I think of Coach’s hand on my shoulder tonight, the pride in his eyes.
I think of Talia’s last look at me on that path—anger and grief knotted together.
My thumb hovers over my father’s message.
I don’t respond.
Instead, I back out of the thread and scroll to a different name.
Her bubble is there:In.Sent hours ago, before the game. The anchor that held me down while everything else tried to blow away.
I tap the text field before I can talk myself out of it.
